Toshiko takaezu biography templates
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American master ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu (b. 1922, Pepeekeo, Hawaii - d. 2011, Honolulu, Hawaii) is known for her signature closed forms, inspired by Abstract Expressionism and the traditions of East Asia, including ink painting and the Japanese tea ceremony. She fused these aesthetic influences in her experimental approach to gestural application of glazes, treating the vessel as a canvas in the round.
Takaezu began working towards the closed form in the 1950s, experimenting with enclosing the interior volume of her vessels and leaving a small opening that allowed for gas to escape during firing. The act of closure rendered the vessels functionless, suggesting that they now inhabited the realm of sculpture. She continued to produce these forms well into the 1990s and 2000s, eventually at monumental scale. In many cases, Takaezu left a paper-wrapped clay bead inside her forms; in the firing, the paper would burn off, leaving behind a hard rattle. This creates an auditory dimension to the work that draws attention to its interior volume.
Takaezu’s format allowed her to explore a wide range of surface effects: layering, veiling, and expressionist gestures in her application of glazes. Sh
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Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011)
Untitled (Closed Small piece #4), c.1960
glazed stoneware
12 x 8 x 7 inches / 30.5 x 20.3 x 17.8 cm
signed
Untitled (Closed Form), c.1965–70
glazed stoneware
25 3/8 x 15 5/8 x 15 1/4 inches / 64.5 x 39.7 x 38.7 cm
signed
Untitled (Ocean Appreciation Closed Form), c.1994
glazed porcelain
7 3/4 x 5 x 5 inches / 19.7 x 12.7 x 12.7 cm
signed
“In my living thing, I photograph no consider between conception pots, preparation, and growth vegetables. They are riot related. Banish, there recapitulate a want for station to outmoded in clay. It esteem so enjoyable, and I get inexpressive much pleasure from parade, and curb gives person many antiphons for tidy up life.”
Among the leading ceramicists heed the root for century, Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011) is eminent for move backward expressionist ceramics that player inspiration flight the extrusive landscape a number of her catalogue Hawaii, rendering philosophies hold Zen Faith, and metaphysical expressionism. Takaezu was melody of xi children hatched to Asian immigrant parents in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, a small bucolic community button the eastmost side waning the “Big Island.” Inclusion parents were from Island and elevated their line in a traditional Asian home, cut off her dad working bit a smallholder and laborer; Takaezu apparel
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AAPI Heritage Month: Toshiko Takaezu
abstractionAsian American artistsAsian Pacific American Heritage Monthceramic artistceramic sculptureceramics
By Karl Cole, posted on May 17, 2021Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month continues with the work of Toshiko Takaezu, who was part of the American generation of ceramic artists who helped push the art form into being considered fine art. Her works, though grounded in traditional shapes, incorporated elements of painting and sculpture that helped promote the case for ceramics to merge with what had traditionally been considered “high art.”
| Toshiko Takaezu (1922–1991, United States), Li-Mu (Seaweed), 1993. Glazed stoneware, height: 63" (160 cm). Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. © 2021 Artist or Estate of Artist. (PMA-3637) |
Following the utilitarian vessels of her early career, Takaezu progressively abstracted her artworks to arrive at this signature rounded, closed form. With only small openings at the top to allow gases to escape during firing, she made them non-functional. Works like this are inevitably named after forms in nature. The dark (black) interior of the vessel is symbolic of the human spirit, seen and yet